Note to Moderator

Dear Moderator
I appreciate you taking your time to have a look at my blogs, I hope you enjoy them. On the right there is a link to my group blog, links to the other students in my group and a link to my teachers central blog, called foundation blog, which has links to all the other students.

On this blog you will find all my individual research my initial ideas and my planning. You will also find the work I did on the preliminary task, which includes the video clip, my thoughts and feedback as I progressed through this project and also my answers to the evaluation questions.

On my group blog you will find any planning and research we did together as a group, and all the work we did as we progressed.

My finished opening film sequence is linked to both of my blogs.

I hope I have made it as clear as possible to find things on my blog everything is in date order, from November 2009 when we started the project to march 2010, when we finished. All the work I have completed on my individual blog I have labelled, planning research and evaluation, depending on what it is. We have also labelled all of our work on the group blog, and I have added the label of my name for the work I am responsible for.

Kind regards

James Vincent Hammett-Burke, 4345

Finishing Post

This blog is now officially closed!
WOOO!!!

been a pleasure to provide work for you.
thank you x

My Blog

Where to find everything


Research
All research- Individual Blog
Research on Genre - Group Blog

Planning
Group Blog- everything
individual Blog - my proposal , the chat up line

Production
Week catch up - Individual Blog
General Production Work - Group Blog


Evaluation
Individual Blog

Screening
Group Blog

Question 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

The brief for the preliminary task was:

‘A continuity task involving film and editing

• character opens door

• walks across the room

• sits opposite to other character and exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue
it should include different continuity techniques’

The brief for main task was:

‘To produce a 2 minute opening sequence for a fiction film it must include:

• titles throughout

• some form of copyright free soundtrack

• evidence of understanding of continuity editing’


Pre-production –

There were many things that we learnt due to our preliminary task, for the main task we made sure that we planned our location well, we decided to take recies and to make sure that we would be able to shoot there, and we had authority to shoot there. Another thing we learnt is that we needed to be organised, this meant that we decided to have a lot of group meetings and make sure we all knew what we needed to do individually leading up to the production stage.

Production –

The preliminary task helped us a lot when it came to the production stage of the main task, we already knew how to use the equipment and were comfortable using it so we didn’t need to spend a lot of time learning how to work it properly and we were able to try more exploring things with the equipment which before we wouldn’t of had the confidence to do. Also we worked on the use of the mastershot in the preliminary task, this helped us as it was essential for the main task so using our experience we could decide on a suitable angle to do it from.

Post-production-

When it came to editing we already knew about the programme we needed to use, this meant we didn’t waste time trying to learn how to use it but we could spending our time experimenting with it and trying different effects. Also we knew what we were good at so we could assign roles and work to our strengths.

Question 6- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

e used a lot of different technology throughout the production of this piece of media. During the production stage we used all the shooting equipment and during the and during the editing stage we used computer technology.

The Camera we used was Sony mini DV camera it was very easy to use and came with a shotgun mic we could attach to the top. This mic was good enough quality for shooting the scenes we wanting to shoot but if our actors were further away or we were shooting outside we would of had to use a broom mic.

We used a paglight to light the shed, we didn’t need any extra lighting for the house scene. We used the shutters on the paglight to create a beam of light and we put on the UV filter to make the light more natural looking.

We used the tripod to keep our camera steady when needed, however in some shots we changed the legs on the tripod to get a different angle and in some we didn’t use it at all, for example the point of view shot in the shed.

The programme we used on the computer during the editing stage was ‘adobe premier pro’ and we use art effects on the Mac to do our titles. I had previously used this programme when editing in earlier years so i was comfortable when using it, we took it in turns to edit our media product however during the later stages of our production the most confident member of the group when it came to editing did a higher percentage of the editing as we wanted to finish the product in time. During this process I learnt about the effects i was able to use on the computer to add to the atmosphere, the effect we chose to use in our final product was the echoing effect in the shed, this made it sound a lot more spooky and a bit like there was more then one girl, which ties in well with the multiple victims.

The advantages of using the technology that we used is that it makes our final product look a lot more professional, the tripod and high quality camera help to bring out the quality in the picture which is important in making a serious film. The disadvantages however are that it takes more time to learn how to use them, when it came to the editing stage we had to learn about the different things we could achieve as it is a complex programme, also during the production stage as the equipment we used was high quality it was expensive so we had to be careful of health and safety and make sure we look after the equipment properly.

Questin 5 - How did you attract/adress your audience?

For FIXATION to be popular with the public we had to make sure that there was a lot of things in our film that attracted our target audience of young adults. For this we needed to know our target audience extremely well.

We knew that teenagers and young adults can be very sadistic and like to prove that they are ‘hard’. This attracts them to horrors and they try and prove that they won’t be scared and it is one genre of film that doesn’t patronise theme, they hate to be patronised. Our imprisonment scene with the attractive girl being tied up will appeal to young adults as it comforts there sadistic side. Our film is a horror the aim of a horror is to scar the audience, young adults can go with their partners or friends to the cinema and show that they are not scared.

                       

We made sure to give our audience what they would expect from a horror film, female captured, lots of blood lots of silent moments in the dark that make you jump and a scary villain.

                                 

 As you can see here we decided to make sure alex's face was blank at all time, this lack of expression and emotion gives him a spooky persona

We also added a twist to our film, the captured became the hunter, when she escapes and hunts down the killer, This twist makes our film different to other horror films and adds to the entertainment>

In the opening scene we used a lot of tension and a build of suspense to what the man was looking at final we get to find out at the end of the film, this tempts the audience in and makes them want to watch the rest of the film.

Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target audience for FIXATION would be young adults around the age of 22-23. This is the typical kind of person of our target audience, say hello to Ryan.

• This is Ryan Mathews, he is 23 and male
• He is half Egyptian and half English
• He enjoys cars
• He likes to get his hands dirty and un-do and then re-build them
• He is a student at the moment thinking about going into law
• He has once made his own mini movie when he was a child and sent it into Blue Peter
• His favourite type of film is horror and Thrillers
• He goes to the cinema once or twice a month depending on whether there is a good film out
• He has a girlfriend so takes her with him when he goes to the cinema
• They rent a lot of films thought usually horror and watch them at home
• He is a big Facebook user admitting ‘i think i have a Facebook addiction’